Limnological comparison of pristine and impacted lakes from a tropical, high-altitude karst region in southern Mexico

Abstract

Climatic conditions strongly influence tropical karst lake limnology, but more information is required to understand how human impacts can modify their ecological patterns. The “Lagunas de Montebello” lake district, a tropical, high-altitude karst landscape, contains 139 solution lakes surrounded by tropical rainforests. To investigate the limnological changes that have been taking place in the “Lagunas de Montebello” in the past 20 years, we selected fourteen lakes for a comparative study: four impacted and ten pristine. The impacted lakes are on the northwest (NW) plateau area fed by surface waters and underground, whereas the pristine ones are on the southeast (SE) intermontane zone fed underground. Impacted lakes receive nutrients and organic matter from agricultural and urban/domestic wastewater from point and nonpoint surface sources. Heavy tropical storms flood the plateau zone, interconnecting the lakes and facilitating pollutant dispersion among lakes. Pristine lakes remain isolated, and groundwater pollution is limited since most anthropogenic activities occur in the NW plateau zone. Most of the limnological variables measured differed between pristine and impacted lakes. Nutrients, chlorophyll-a, total suspended solids, and particulate organic carbon concentrations were higher in the impacted lakes. The hydraulic connection between the Montebello Lakes facilitates the rapid dispersion of pollutants from one lake to another, threatening lakes that are still pristine. Although aquatic karst environments promote phosphorus precipitation strongly P-limiting primary production, anthropogenic additions of N, P, and organic matter make this process impossible, stimulating ecosystem degradation and leading to eutrophication as evidenced in the “Lagunas de Montebello” lake district.

Keywords:

• Tropical lakes
• Karst lakes
• Eutrophication
• Chiapas
• Lagunas de Montebello

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Acknowledgments

We thank René Morales Hernández for his support during the fieldwork. We also thank the “Parque Nacional Lagunas de Montebello,” Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas (CONANP), the local community, and the Comisariados Ejidales from Antelá, Cárdenas, Miguel Hidalgo, Ojo de Agua, and Tziscao for facilitating access to the lakes. We also thank the Comité de Administración de Tziscao and the Villas Tziscao Hotel personnel for offering their support and facilities for this study. We thank the colleagues of the Tropical Limnology team of the FES Iztacala (UNAM) for their support in the fieldwork and Martín Merino-Ibarra and Fermín S. Castillo-Sandoval for their technical support with the analysis of nutrients. We thank the anonymous reviewers and Dr. Hamilton for their scientific and linguistic review, which significantly improved the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding

We thank the following funding agencies that supported the present investigation: Fondo Sectorial de Investigación y Desarrollo Sobre el Agua (Sectorial Fund for Water Research and Development) (CONAGUA/CONACYT) through the project 167603 “Estudio hidrológico y de calidad del agua del sistema lagunar de Montebello, en el Estado de Chiapas”; Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Académico (UNAM-DGAPA-PAPIIT) through the projects IN219215 “Factores que determinan el estado trófico de los Lagos de Montebello, Chiapas”, IV200319 “Área experimental de lagos tropicales” and IV200122 “AELT - Efectos del cambio global y climático sobre la limnología y biodiversidad acuática”; Programa de Investigación en Cambio Climático (UNAM-PINCC) through the projects PINCC-2020 “Cuerpos acuáticos epicontinentales: papel en la dinámica del carbono y emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero en México” and PINCC-2021 “Cuerpos acuáticos epicontinentales: papel en la dinámica del scarbono y emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero en México. Continuación”; the Spanish Ministry of Science (PID2020_116147GB-C21 funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033) as well the Spanish Research Council (COOPA20433 and COOPA20472 within the i-COOP + 2020-2021 Program).